Love Can Move Mountains
by Ster J
Summary: A rescue story. Spock and Uhura's shuttle crashes. They have to struggle to get to each other.
1. Default Chapter

Title: Love Can Move Mountains 

Author: Ster Julie

Rating: PG

Genre: Drama

Code: S/U

Part: 1/9

A rescue story. Spock and Uhura's shuttle crashes. They have to struggle to get to each other.

---oOo---

/Where did this mountain come from?/ Uhura wondered. Last thing she knew, she and Spock were on board a shuttle headed back to the Enterprise after a glorious shore leave together.

Uhura realized that she was alone. She looked around for any signs of Spock, but he was nowhere to be found. Uhura started to get a gnawing feeling in her stomach. She couldn't see him and she couldn't feel him.

"He's not dead," she said aloud. /He's not dead, he's not dead, he's not dead,/ chanted through her head.

Uhura looked around more frantically. /Where? Where is he?/ she thought frantically. Her foot slipped, sending a hail of rocks sliding off the mountain and dropping into a great crevasse. She caught a tree perched on the edge before falling off the mountain herself.

"Spock!" Uhura screamed both aloud and in her head. No answer. /He's not dead, he's not dead, he's not dead,/ continued the chant. Uhura dared to look down into the ravine far below her. She scanned anxiously for any sign of his blue uniform or the shuttle. No luck. Either Spock was hidden below, or he wasn't there.

Uhura raised her head at the sound of winged raptors on the other side of the ravine. "Spock!" she breathed as she spotted him.

Spock was lying face down, half in and half out of the crashed shuttle, unmoving.

Uhura was puzzled. Obviously, she had been blown clear of the crash site, but she felt no broken bones or any other injuries. How could that be?

In the end, Uhura decided that it didn't matter. Getting to Spock's side was more important. She followed the chasm to the right and to the left. The chasm didn't seem to narrow for miles in either direction. The span seemed too great to leap, and the way down and back up was very deep with nearly vertical faces on either side. She saw that there was an ample supply of saplings. She would make as much rope as she could and go from there. Uhura resolved to get to her beloved's side somehow, or die trying.

---oOo---


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Love Can Move Mountains 

Author: Ster Julie

Same disclaimer as part 1.

Part: 2/9

/Where did this mountain come from?/ Spock wondered. Last thing he knew, he and Uhura were on board a shuttle headed back to the Enterprise after a satisfactory shore leave together.

Spock realized that he was alone. He looked around for any signs of Uhura, but she was nowhere to be found. Spock reached delicately for their bond, but he could not sense her.

/She's not dead,/ Spock thought. /I would feel an emptiness in a severed bond, not this silence./

Spock looked around more for Uhura more thoroughly. /Where? Where is she?/ His foot slipped, sending a hail of rocks sliding off the mountain and dropping into a great crevasse. He caught at several boulders perched on the edge before falling off the mountain himself. He finally heard the rocks hit the bottom of the crevasse and realized that it was extremely deep. One fall off this mountain would be fatal.

Spock looked down into the ravine far below him. He scanned for any sign of her red uniform or the shuttle. No luck. Either Uhura was hidden below, or she wasn't there.

Spock raised his head at the sound of winged raptors on the other side of the ravine. "Uhura!" he breathed as he spotted her.

Uhura was lying face down, half in and half out of the crashed shuttle, unmoving.

Spock was puzzled. Obviously, he had been blown clear of the crash site, but he felt no broken bones or any other injuries. How could that be?

In the end, Spock decided that it didn't matter. Getting to Uhura's side was more important. He followed the chasm to the right and to the left. The chasm didn't seem to narrow for miles in either direction. The span seemed to great to leap, and the way down and back up was very deep with nearly vertical faces on either side. He saw that there was an ample supply of saplings. He would make as much rope as he could and go from there. Spock resolved to get to his bondsmate's side somehow, or die trying.

---oOo---


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Love Can Move Mountains 

Author: Ster Julie

Same disclaimer as part 1.

Part: 3/9

"Debris located, Keptin," Chekov announced form the science station.

Kirk leaped from the center seat.

"Survivors?" he demanded. Chekov nodded.

"Yes, sair," he replied. "Two lifesigns, one human, one Vulcan." Chekov straightened to look at Kirk. "It's them." Kirk turned to communications.

"Parker, try to raise them," he said to the blonde officer at the station usually occupied by Uhura. Kirk turned to the helm.

"Sulu, take us in," Kirk said to the helmsman. "Chekov, relay the coordinates..."

"Already did, sair," Chekov interrupted. Kirk turned back to the Russian.

"Relay their lifesigns to McCoy," the captain ordered.

"Already did, sair," Chekov repeated. Kirk's shot up and he looked at the mop headed ensign.

"Officer thinking, Mr. Chekov," Kirk said. Chekov acknowledged the praise with a nod.

"You're a good teacher, sair," Chekov responded. Kirk flashed a brief grin, then returned to business.

"How much damage to the shuttle?" he asked. Chekov bent over the console once more.

"Substantial damage," he reported. "It's no longer spacevorthy, but the cabin is still airtight." Chekov adjusted the canner. "Good ting, too. Dere isn't much atmosphere dere."

"Where did they come down?" Kirk demanded.

"Dey landed on the fourth moon, sair," Chekov reported, "in a crater." Kirk nodded.

"Good," he replied. "Let's hope that it was a soft impact."

---oOo---


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Love Can Move Mountains 

Author: Ster Julie

Same disclaimer as part 1.

Part: 4/9

Uhura coiled up the length of rope she had made from the tree bark. It had been long, tedious work, but the sight of her beloved Spock lying unconscious on the other side of the arroyo kept her motivated. It was so frustrating! Spock was so close, but the chasm made him so far away!

She walked carefully back to the edge, rope in hand, until she was across from a couple of boulders on the other side. Uhura figured that if she could fling the rope with a tree branch attached to it across the expanse, and if she could catch it just right on those stones, then she could tie off the rope to a tree on her side and pull herself across.

/That's a lot of ifs, Nyota!/ she said to herself. /Got to have faith!/ she chided.

Uhura had already selected a branch. She prayed that it was strong enough to hold her, that her aim was good, and that her rope was strong.

It was a long way to the bottom.

The first attempt fell far short. Uhura pulled on the rope and brought the branch back. The distance didn't seem that far, but perhaps she miscalculated. Letting out more of the precious rope, Uhura tried again. This time she hit the rocks, but the log slipped between them and fell back down the cliff face. "Third time's a charm," she muttered between clenched teeth as she let the log fly.

It arced gracefully over the canyon, over the boulders to the other side. Uhura carefully flipped the rope in between the upright boulders and pulled carefully. The branch lodged itself perfectly behind the boulders, eliciting a victory whoop from Uhura. She tightened the other end of the rope which she had already secured to the tree and eased herself to the edge of the precipice. She tied pieces of material from the skirt of her red uniform to her hands to protect them from ropeburn.

Uhura gave one last look at Spock. He still hadn't moved.

"I'm coming, Sugar," she said softly before grabbing the rope with two hands and also grasping it between her boots. She reached and grabbed and heaved her way across the chasm, looking like a giant red and brown inchworm ridiculously high above the canyon floor. "Hang on! I'm coming for you!"

---oOo---


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Love Can Move Mountains 

Author: Ster Julie

Same disclaimer as part 1.

Part: 5/

Kirk waited anxiously in the transporter room with McCoy and his medical team. Two gurneys waited for their precious cargo.

As soon as the two officers were beamed aboard, the medics swarmed the platform to do triage.

"Spock's in a coma," McCoy announced. "Head injuries and assorted bumps and bruises."

"Same with Lt. Uhura," Christine reported.

"Let's get them to Sickbay," McCoy said.

The medics gingerly lifted Spock and placed him on the gurney. Christine headed out the door with him as McCoy checked Uhura. As soon as she was placed on the other gurney, the rest of the team left.

Kirk kept close to McCoy.

Well?" he asked simply.

"I'll let you know as soon as I can," McCoy answered as he loaded Uhura into the lift. "They're alive. They're not bleeding out. That's the good news."

"What's the bad news?" Kirk wondered as the doors closed.

---oOo---

Uhura moved inch by painful inch across her homemade—and untested—rope stretched across the canyon. /Hang on, Spock./ she sent, adding /Rope, don't fail me now!/

In the end, it wasn't the rope that failed her.

Uhura herd a sickening crack and she froze. The rope jerked and Uhura knew that she was going to fall. The back of her head was facing the rock wall. Not good if the rope broke on her side of the canyon. But, if it broke on Spock's end, she would end up hanging upside down.

The rope jerked again. It came from the end tied to the tree. Trying not to sway too much, Uhura raised her head enough to peek back across the canyon. Just as she thought. It wasn't the rope that was breaking but the tree perched on the cliff.

Uhura redoubled her efforts to cross the arroyo before the rope disl—

Just then, the tree cracked, the rope was dislodged and Uhura swung like a pendulum right into the rock face. Twisting desperately, Uhura turned around and, remembering to keep her knees "soft," made contact with the cliff face, pushing out to deflect some of the shock of impact.

When the wild swinging finally stopped, Uhura took a deep breath and began to pull herself up, "walking on the rock" until she reached to top and hauled herself over.

---oOo---


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Love Can Move Mountains 

Author: Ster Julie

Same disclaimer as part 1.

Part: 6/9

Christine settled Uhura into bed after surgery. The bone fragments that had pushed against Uhura's brain had been put back in place. The pressure on her brain had eased, but her life signs were still low and she was still in a coma.

Alarms started to go off. Christine watched as her friend's readings plummeted. The nurse pulled a life support panel over Uhura's bed and squeezed her hand.

"Ny?" Christine barked. "Nyota Penda Uhura, don't you give up! Fight, girl, fight!" The nurse's bullying did the trick. Before the full life support had clicked on, Uhura's readings began to crawl slowly upwards.

---oOo---

Spock coiled up the length of rope he had made from the tree bark. It had been long, tedious work, and most of the forest looked bare from his efforts, but the sight of his bondsmate lying unconscious on the other side of the arroyo kept him motivated. Spock fought feelings of helplessness and frustration. Spock had estimated the distance to be only twenty meters, but it might as well have been twenty parsecs. He could see no other possibilities. If this didn't work, they would both be dead.

He walked carefully back to the edge, rope in hand, until he was across from a tree on the other side. Spock had estimated the distance, the planet's gravity, and the amount of force needed to wrap the rope around the trunk of the tree. If he was successful, then he could swing over to the other side, scale the face of the canyon wall and get to Uhura.

/My mothers, my fathers, and all my relations,/ Spock prayed silently, /strengthen my spirit that I might reach my mate./

Spock weighted one end of the rope with a stone. As he swung the rope above his head, Spock was reminded of the last time he had used an ahn woon. The first attempt fell far short.

"Concentrate!" Spock chided himself.

The second throw hit the tree but it did not wrap around as Spock needed it to. As he pulled the rope back, Spock noticed a raptor circling above Uhura's fallen form. His third throw was aimed at the bird which he struck in mid-flight. The bird tumbled down, down.

It was a long way to the bottom.

Once more, Spock retrieved the rope with it's now-bloodied stone. He swung it overhead and heaved it with all his might.

/Nyota!/ his mind screamed.

Spock's wild throw proved true. The rope sailed across the canyon and wrapped itself several times around the tree trunk. Spock pulled on the rope it held true. Untying the other end from a nearby boulder. Spock wrapped the roped around both hands, stepped to the edged and jumped across.

Spock sailed across the expanse. Using his legs as shock absorbers, he bounced against the face of the canyon. Pulling on the rope, Spock "walked" up the rock wall until he could grab the tree. Using the branches for leverage, Spock hoisted himself over the edge of the precipice and ran to Uhura's side.

---oOo---


	7. Chapter 7

Title: Love Can Move Mountains 

Author: Ster Julie

Same disclaimer as part 1.

Part: 7/9

McCoy fine-tuned the scanner and passed it again over a comatose Spock. He ran through the textbook directives for treating a Vulcan with a severe concussion, tweaking them ever so slightly for his hybrid friend.

McCoy had given Spock glucose-V to feed the brain and drugs to open the constricted arteries so that more blood and oxygen could reach his brain. Spock' s blood chemistry would have to reset itself after the concussion caused his brain to depolarize. The resulting cascade from the misfiring of his neurotransmitters during the collision caused a flooding of sodium, potassium, and calcium ions. Permanent brain damage was still a possibility.

McCoy had done all he could do for Spock. This wait-and-see passivity was excruciatingly difficult. The doctor looked over to where Uhura lay. She, too, was comatose.

McCoy shook his head in frustration. He was sure that the fact that Spock and Uhura were separated in their recovery was not helping the situation. If they could touch each other, the doctor suspected that they could wake each other up.

Feeling giddy in his powerlessness, McCoy moved to stand between the two beds. He took one of Spock's hands in his own then leaned over to take Uhura's hand as well. Was there such a thing as psychic conduit?

"Come ON, you two!" McCoy bellowed. "Wake the hell up!" No response. He didn't really expect one. Sighing, he replaced his patients' hands on the beds and moved back to Spock's side. Was there a change in his readings? No?

"Damn wishful thinking," he muttered.

McCoy gently passed a glycerin swab over Spock's lips and mouth to prevent dryness.

"Come back to us, Spock," McCoy whispered. "We need you. Uhura needs you."

---oOo---

Spock found that he was exhausted after his trek across the arroyo and up the cliff face. He had to stop after running only a few meters just to catch his breath. Was there something wrong with the atmosphere here? Spock noticed that, although he had traveled several meters, Uhura was now farther away instead of closer. What was the atmospheric makeup on this planet? That could be affecting his thinking. Spock plowed onward, feeling as though he was moving through molasses. It took all his energy, but he reached Uhura at last.

Spock fell just out of reach of Uhura. He was spent. He could no longer move.

"Nyota!" he called stretching toward her "Take my hand!" No response. Spock couldn't even lift his head to determine if she was breathing. "Nyota," he pleaded, "take my hand. Take it. "Nyota..."

---oOo---


	8. Chapter 8

Title: Love Can Move Mountains 

Author: Ster Julie

Same disclaimer as part 1.

Part: 8/9

Uhura was nearly blown off the mountain as she hauled herself over the edge. The wind puzzled her as there wasn't even a breeze on her side of the canyon. It didn't matter now. Uhura grabbed at anything she could find to help her get to Spock's side. It was hard going, as the wind took back one of every three steps Uhura took forward.

Uhura found it getting more difficult to breathe. The wind snatched away nearly every breath she took.

Uhura was nearly at her goal. Spock was only a meter or two away when suddenly her world started spinning. Uhura went down, her fingertips just centimeters away from Spock's hand.

---oOo---

"Oxygen levels slipping, Doctor," Christine reported from Uhura's bedside.

"Oxygen rebreather mask at 5 liters," McCoy ordered. He was at Spock's side adjusting the nasal cannula he had put on Spock earlier.

McCoy was losing this battle. They were going to lose Spock and Uhura, he was certain. He had done everything medically possible...

"Perhaps it's time for the impossible," McCoy muttered. Christine looked up at the doctor, puzzled.

"Doctor?"

"Spock is always accusing me of using witchcraft and voodoo," McCoy said, as if that explained anything. "It's time to pull out the beads and rattles. Give me a hand here."

Christine moved over to Spock's bed where McCoy was already repositioning the Vulcan to the edge of the diagnostic bed.

"Put on the railings," McCoy ordered. "I don't want them falling out of bed."  
  
"Them?" Christine asked as she complied. It then dawned on the nurse what the doctor was intending to do as she saw McCoy move to Uhura's side, carefully pick her up and carry her to Spock's side. Christine turned off the diagnostic bed's monitor before the alarms went off.

McCoy carefully deposited Uhura by Spock's side, putting her in the crook of the Vulcan's arm. He stepped back and watched what, if anything, happened.

It didn't take long. Only moments after being placed in one bed, the two injured officers turned to each other, weakly moving hands and arms to draw the other closer.

McCoy passed a scanner over Uhura, then again over Spock. The doctor smiled. Christine didn't need to guess. She knew what the scanner reported without even looking.

---oOo---


	9. Conclusion

Title: Love Can Move Mountains 

Author: Ster Julie

Same disclaimer as part 1.

Part: 9/9

Spock and Uhura rested comfortably in each other's arms.

"What happened?" Uhura asked sleepily.

"Our shuttle crashed," Spock replied. "I was thrown clear of the wreckage and had to work my way back to you."

Uhura sat up at that.

"No, I was the one thrown clear!" she replied. "I had to cross the canyon on a rope, climb up the mountain, and push through a sirocco to find you.

They looked across the arroyo. There was no shuttle there. They looked behind them. The was no shuttle there either, nor was there any wind. Trees on both sides stood serenely in spite of the fact that they were all stripped of their bark.

"Obviously we are dreaming," Spock stated. Uhura looked at her Vulcan.

"Why do you say that?" she queried. Spock sat up next to Uhura.

"Because I crashed us on a moon," he replied, pulling a leaf from her hair. "There was no planet such as this anywhere near where we were traveling."

Uhura slipped her arms around Spock and looked playfully into his eyes.

"I like these kind of dreams," she purred.

"The kind of dreams that involve struggles and dangerous situations and..."

Uhura squeezed Spock more tightly to silence him.

"No, silly!" she teased. "The ones that involve snuggles and romantic situations." She reached up to kiss him. "The ones where I wake up in your arms."

FIN


End file.
